Race to a Vaccine
The race to the finish line is getting intense. There’s a total number of four vaccines in the U.S. that have entered Phase 3 of clinical trials. Most recently, 60,000 participants were dosed with Johnson & Johnson’s investigational COVID-19 vaccine. The stock was up just slightly on Friday following the announcement.
The other promising competitors include late-stage vaccines being developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, BioNTech and Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc. have very different approaches and vaccine types to beat out the coronavirus once and for all.
President and CEO of the Infectious Disease Research Institute explained that “We have three categories of vaccines that are moving forward: there’s protein vaccines, nucleic acid vaccines and we have the viral vectors.” AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine candidates fall under the category of viral-vector vaccines, while Moderna and Pfizer’s are both messenger RNA vaccines.
Knowing which of these types will prove to be the safest and most efficient is anyone’s guess. Keeping a close eye on upcoming trial results will be the only way to gauge who’s leading the race to a coronavirus-free world.
I am not a financial advisor and my comments should never be taken as financial advice. Investments come with risk, so always do your research and analysis beforehand.